MAME and lightgun games question

[reko19]

I am running MAME123b, on the startup of any lightgun game I have two croshairs on display. If I start 1Pl game, the crosshair for Pl2 remains in the center of the screen until manually moved to the corner of the screen using Pl2 joy. Is there any way to have second crosshair hidden until Pl2 game is started?

As a side note, great to see off-screen reload working. I know some people are having tough time configuring lightguns, i have no problems with dual Actlab setup. I could never figure out how all the options under mame.ini CONTROL section operate. Took some trial and error, is it documented anywhere?

[u_rebelscum]

...Is there any way to have second crosshair hidden until Pl2 game is started?

No.      A work around is press F1 a couple times.  Once makes both disappear, second time shows P1, third shows both.  You'd have to do this everytime you start a different game, and whenever you go from one player to two player or vice versa.  IMO, easier/clearer just to manually move P2's to a corner like you already do, as the P2 will naturally move the crosshair back into play when he starts.

... I could never figure out how all the options under mame.ini CONTROL section operate. Took some trial and error, is it documented anywhere?

Did you check out mame's docs\config.txt file?  (and other txt files?)  Also, I don't have a CONTROLS section in my mame.ini; do you mean the CORE INPUT OPTIONS section? 

There is so more info in the source (src/emu/inptport.c, mostly), but it's mostly on the why things are do the way they're done, rather than how to change the option settings.  (Check MAWS or mamedev.org if you don't want to download the whole source.)

[reko19]

Thanks for the reply. I was referring to CORE INPUT OPTIONS and CORE INPUT AUTOMATIC ENABLE OPTIONS. I'll go thru the txt files one more time. So far I was having hard time figuring out certain things. I.e. why lightgun_device should be set to keyboard instead of the mouse, etc. Guess I shouldn't try to fix it if it works.

[Minwah]

So far I was having hard time figuring out certain things. I.e. why lightgun_device should be set to keyboard instead of the mouse, etc. Guess I shouldn't try to fix it if it works.

If you enable devices with eg 'lightgun 1', 'mouse 1' etc., then you do not need to set the 'lightgun_device' etc options.

In short, these options are the 'old' way of doing it:

mouse                     0
joystick                  0
lightgun                  0

Setting 'mouse 1' would enable mouse, all the time, for all games.

This is the preferred 'new' method:

paddle_device             joystick
adstick_device            joystick
pedal_device              joystick
dial_device               mouse
trackball_device          mouse
lightgun_device           mouse
positional_device         mouse
mouse_device              mouse

The 'new' method, automatically enables said device for games which require it. eg (using my example above), Mame would enable joysticks for any game with a pedal.

Although the new system is preferred, there are a few flaws. Sometimes it is just easier to use the old method.  One example is that if you want to use a joystick device for a digital input, you can't without using 'joystick 1'.

[reko19]

Thank you, very helpful as always.